It is self-evident that every individual should have a will that sets out their wishes on their death, both in terms of both their personal wishes and their business assets.  For anyone in a business partnership, it is really important that their will also reflects the partnership agreement, particularly in terms of the treatment of business assets on death, the obligations of the continuing partners and how assets are owned and held.

Most partnerships have a variation of land and property ownership within the partners with different assets being owned in different rations by the various partners.  It is a really good idea to reflect these within a land capital account within the annual account and it should also be appended to the partnership agreement and form part of the will planning.   The obligations within the partnership agreement will override anything in the will and this is really important if any of the partners intend to leave farming assets within the farming partnership to non-farming siblings for example.   

Good advice from your consultant in the first instance and then reflecting tax and legal advice is the best way to achieve goals, particularly when dealing with distribution of assets upon death as a discussion led by an independent 3^rd party is often the best way to make sure that everybody is clear about what is going to happen upon death and we think through unintended consequences e.g. what happens if younger generations die before older generations, what would happen on the event of divorce and what should happen to future generations where the assets are not yet ready to be passed to them in the form of trusts for example.